


Playing the Odds

by Sholio



Category: Mrs. Pollifax - Dorothy Gilman
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 22:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8419321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Tag scene after the main action in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. She promised to visit him in the hospital, and Emily Pollifax always keeps her promises.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Niki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/gifts).



For two days after arriving in Washington, D.C from Albania by way of Italy, Mrs. Pollifax did little except sleep, eat, and take multiple baths. She felt only the slightest guilt at the bill the taxpayers would be receiving for her very nice hotel room. But, she reminded herself, she'd done a great service for those same taxpayers, even if they would never know, and with that she managed to tuck away the guilt.

She judged by the niceness of the hotel that Carstairs was feeling a certain amount of guilt himself for what had happened to her, an impression that was enhanced by the fact that he took time out of his no-doubt-crowded schedule to personally visit her while she was eating a second lunch in the hotel's dining room. The visit was brief but warm, though he politely demurred from providing answers to any of the questions she asked him, including the status of the microfilm and the health of Dr. Howell (whom she still could not stop thinking of as the Genie). At least she did manage to get a reply to her query about Farrell's wellbeing. "He's recovering at Walter Reed, and he can have visitors, last I heard." Carstairs smiled. "No doubt going out of his mind with boredom and plotting his escape already, if I know Farrell. You should see him at your earliest convenience, since of course we'll arrange a flight for you back to New Jersey in the next day or two."

"So soon?" The idea of returning to Apartment 4-A filled her with assorted emotions, some of which were various shades of relief at the thought of being home ... but by no means all of them. Not even the majority, in fact.

Carstairs looked briefly disconcerted. "I'd expect you'd be more than ready to get back, after everything that's happened."

"Well, yes, of course ... but ..." She brightened at the notion that it was only temporary. Long enough to recharge her batteries, as it were. "You'll have another assignment for me again soon, I hope?"

"I, uh ..." Now he was rendered briefly speechless. He cleared his throat and reached for the glass of water which an attentive waiter had placed in front of him when he'd arrived at her table. "I'll look into it," he managed after a few bracing sips.

"Thank you," she said, and now she could feel the rightness of his earlier words. She was, indeed, _quite_ ready to be home ... for a little while. "I'll look forward to your call."

"I expect you will, won't you?" he said, bemused, and after a little more small talk, made his farewells.

Nice man, Carstairs. But he should get out of the office more, Mrs. Pollifax thought as she left the hotel for the sunny street outside. It would do him good.

She was aware on some level that she hadn't quite processed everything that had happened to her. There was a good deal that was going to take some time to sink in, especially the fact that she'd found it in herself to deal lethal violence to other human beings. She could feel that dread awareness lurking somewhere inside her, waiting to ambush her at odd moments. She'd already had one unexpected crying spree while standing in the hotel gift shop looking at souvenirs.

But for the moment, it was a beautiful day, she was well, Farrell was well -- or would be soon -- and there was not much else that she wanted out of life.

She stopped by a florist's (she'd promised him roses, after all) and then got a taxi to take her to Walter Reed Medical Center. She was slightly concerned that an Army hospital would be different from the ones she was used to, but it turned out that one hospital was much like another, and with some asking around and a few wrong turns she located Farrell's room.

Farrell had a room to himself, and Mrs. Pollifax came in to find not just one but two nurses simpering as they fluffed his pillows and tidied his sheets. She waited in the doorway, amused. It wasn't as if she could begrudge him this, after all he'd been through. Then the most egregious of the simperers giggled when he winked at her, and she found that she could, after all, begrudge it. The girl was hardly old enough to _vote,_ for heaven's sake; Farrell, _honestly._

"I hope you aren't too ill for visitors," she declared, breezing in with roses in hand to save him from himself, and the nurses from him.

"Duchess!" He pushed himself up in the bed and broke into a wide, delighted grin, which was enough to make her willing to forgive him any multitude of sins. He looked vastly better than the last time she'd seen him, despite the leg in its cast and a traction harness, and the bandages swathed around his right arm. He'd shaved, for one thing; the piratical beard was gone, trimmed back to the pencil mustache he'd had when she first saw him. The color was returning to his face.

It was strange, she thought, how time and experience could change a person's opinions. She still remembered how dangerous he'd looked to her on her first sight of him, how hard-bitten and frightening -- a man to fear. And if anything, her experiences in the mountains had taught her firsthand how dangerous he truly could be. But she'd also discovered how gallant he was, how brave and kind -- how decent -- and the face that had once looked to her like a Hollywood cliché was dear and welcome and wholly his own. His smile was infectious; she returned it wholeheartedly.

The blonde nurse found Mrs. Pollifax some water for the roses and a chair to sit in: a kind girl, and she hoped Farrell managed to behave himself with the poor young things' hearts.

"And how are you feeling?" she inquired, drawing the chair up to Farrell's bedside. "Pity about the traction."

He winced. "Yeah, they had to rebreak the leg. Wasn't healing straight. Not your fault," he added at her stricken look. "Not your fault at all. You did a fine job of setting it under the circumstances."

"Have they let you know when you'll be out of here?"

"A few more days is what they're telling me." Having sat up when she came in, he leaned forward to adjust his leg in the harness. "I'm trying to be a polite boy and behave myself -- I see that look, Duchess -- in the hopes of getting an early pardon."

"Take care of yourself and get well," she said gently. "That's the important thing right now. I didn't haul you out of a prison in Albania so you could go working yourself into a relapse."

Farrell made a rude, impatient noise, but then lapsed into a smile. "For you, Duchess, I'll try to restrain myself. If nothing else, I expect you'll be on the next flight down from New Brunswick to drag me back to the hospital by the ear if I do anything I shouldn't."

"You'd best believe it," she said, smiling back. "What are your plans after this?"

"Oh, back to Mexico City, I expect. I have an art gallery waiting for me."

"But isn't it dangerous? You were found out --"

He waved this off. "It wouldn't be the first time some faction's come close to sniffing me out. They don't know anything, not really. I've a bit of a checkered past -- _that's_ common knowledge -- and I never admitted anything to anyone who questioned me. Besides, the Chinese are only one group among many. Even if someone suggests Johnny Farrell might be taking an envelope of cash from the Americans every once in a while, I can play one faction against the other and keep them guessing for years."

She'd almost managed to forget what a dangerous double life he led. This glimpse of it brought out a surge of pity, which she hoped didn't show on her face. It might have, because he took a deep breath and changed the subject. "And what are you going back to, Duchess? A busy social round of garden club meetings and bookcarts?"

"Oh, all of that and more. The library's annual book sale will be starting soon, you know, and they're always short of volunteers."

 _"No,"_ he said, with a mock-appalled look.

"I know, you'd think more people would be willing to contribute a few hours of their time in the name of literacy, wouldn't you? So there's that, and the Red Cross blood drive, of course, and the fundraiser for the school lunch program -- and oh, Farrell, I expect to be so desperately, deathly _bored,"_ she confessed in a rush, leaning forward. "How can I possibly concentrate on filling out library sales slips when I've been chased down an Albanian mountainside dressed as a goatherd and outrun the police in a sailboat?"

"Somehow," he said dryly, "I think you'll manage. Look on it as a well-deserved retirement."

"I suppose you're right, but I do hope Carstairs will send me another case soon."

"My God," he said. "You're not getting out, are you? You're staying in."

"Of course I am," she retorted indignantly. "I'd have to be mad to go back to a life in New Brunswick when I could serve my country ever so much more capably outside it."

"They also serve who stand and wait, you know," he pointed out with a sparkle in his eye. "Or push bookcarts, as the case may be."

"That's quite true, so I will leave it to others, more talented than myself, to push them perfectly well. Oh, don't mistake me, Farrell. I adore my geraniums, and I have every intention of conquering the elusive challenge of the night-blooming cereus if it takes me the rest of my life. And it would break poor Polly Stadwick's heart if I leave her to staff the volunteer desk all alone at the library. Still ... there _is_ more to life than this, and now that I've discovered it, I plan to take hold of it with both my hands. And," she added sternly, "if you weren't made of the same stuff, I expect you'd have gone home from the war and settled down in some small town wherever you're from to marry a nice girl and raise three adorable children, instead of running guns to Cuba instead."

"Three? That's oddly specific."

"One boy, one girl, and one to break the tie." She reached into her purse. "And speaking of ties, and other matters of chance and odds ..." She brought out a deck of cards.

Farrell groaned. "Isn't watching you play solitaire for day after day in a prison cell enough? I'm amazed you can stand to look at them." He propped himself up on an elbow to lean forward and examine the cards more closely. "Though I assume those aren't the same ones."

"Of course not. These are a deck I bought from the hotel gift shop." She flipped them over to show him. "They have the Washington Monument on the back."

"Patriotic," he remarked.

"I would accept nothing less. Now ..." She reached for the tray from his bedside table.

"Duchess, I'm begging you ..."

"Surely you know poker, correct?" she asked, beginning to deal out the cards. "You seem like a man who appreciates a good game of poker."

"Well ... yes." He squinted at her as if anticipating a trap. "But do you? From the way you're dealing those cards, I suspect not."

"Heavens no, this is Clock Solitaire. I'd never played cards in my life before Señor DeGamez gave me the original deck. So I'll teach you solitaire," she said, sparkling at him, "and you can teach me poker."

"The way my life has been going, I dare say you'll be a natural and clean me out by the time the nurses come around to change the bedpans."

They spent the rest of the afternoon huddled over the cards. Farrell, with his right arm strapped to his chest because of the bullet wounds, had some trouble holding the cards, but he managed competently nevertheless (laying down his poker hand before drawing his discards), and gracefully accepted her shuffling on his behalf. He wasn't the best of teachers, but he was infinitely patient with her mistakes, and she was gratified when she began to win hands of poker almost as often as she lost, playing for breath mints from a tin she'd purchased at the hotel gift shop to put in the new purse which she'd _also_ purchased from the gift shop. 

She was also gratified that he turned out not to be completely hopeless at solitaire.

And they talked. She told him about Roger and Jane and her neighbors, and other minutiae of her life in New Brunswick. Somehow it hadn't seemed right to speak of home and family too much in Albania, where every word was a potential source of information for their captors, and the ordinary, homely world seemed so far away. It was so odd, she thought, that she and Farrell hardly knew each other at all in the ordinary way -- not the way she would have gotten to know someone back home, where the first things you learned about a person were the superficial things, age and occupation and number of children. With Farrell, she had learned the important things first: that he was patient and courageous and infinitely good-humored in the face of pain and near-certain death; that he liked her, and respected her, and trusted her in a crisis.

She still didn't know much about him, though he reciprocated her stories about her children by spinning tales from his wild Mexico City past that had her in stitches. And it didn't matter, she thought, if she never learned the things about John Sebastian Farrell that she would have surely known about any of her neighbors: where he'd grown up, if his parents were still alive, whether he'd been married before.

What mattered was that there wasn't a human being alive that she'd rather be marooned with on a sailboat in the Adriatic while being chased by Communists.

She stayed until a nurse came in to announce that the patients would be having their dinner soon, and then rose apologetically, putting the cards away. "I hope I haven't exhausted you."

"You could never." However, he was starting to look white and pinched despite his bravado. She thought he might be due for a pain shot. "Come back, won't you? How long are you in town?"

"I'm afraid Carstairs intends to see me packed off to New Jersey shortly. I suppose it's for the best; one shouldn't use too much of the taxpayers' money for an expensive hotel when there is a perfectly serviceable apartment just to the north."

"Of course not," he said, looking as if he was suppressing a smile. "Ah well, your plants need watering, and your children will be wanting to hear all about your trip. And you can't deprive the garden club of your company."

"Naturally not." But she lingered, all too aware of the dangers he'd hinted at earlier. There was no way to know what might befall either of them before they next saw each other. There was no way to know, in fact, if she'd ever see him again.

He held out a hand. "I hope you're not considering saying goodbye, Duchess."

"Never." She took his hand, allowing her own to be engulfed in his strong, tanned fingers. "I'm only thinking that I would like to see your paintings someday. Perhaps I'll need to visit Mexico City again."

"Not that I wouldn't be delighted to have you, but there are always holidays, you know. Don't be surprised if a package from Mexico makes its way to your doorstep for Christmas, Duchess."

"I can't take one for free," she protested. "You sell those."

Suddenly serious, he said, "Duchess, I owe you my life. I'd give you every painting I paint from now 'til Doomsday if it would pay the debt, but as it can't, you'll simply have to do me the favor of accepting one small painting -- of a sailboat, perhaps -- to remember me by."

"As if I could ever forget you." Now tears sprang to her eyes; she blinked them angrily away. " _Not_ a sailboat," she said fiercely. "A -- a mountain, I suppose -- Oh, I don't know, Farrell. Paint what you like. I'll display it with pride."

He leaned forward and caught her in a tight hug, crushing the breath out of her. "It was a lucky day for me," he said softly against her ear, "when you walked into a bookshop on the wrong morning."

"It was the right morning, I'll have you know," she protested somewhat shakily. "It was the owner who was wrong. Farrell, _do_ take care of yourself in Mexico."

"I always do," he promised. "It's what I do best."

That was so patently false that she could only hug him harder, for this was a man who had broken his leg trying to jump off a cliff to his death rather than betray those who trusted him.

He brushed a kiss across her cheek and the corner of her mouth, and then the nurse was bringing in a tray, and she gathered her things to leave.

When she turned around in the doorway, Farrell blew her a kiss, and she could only smile in return, and hope that she would see him again.

***

The package from Mexico arrived on Dec. 23, wrapped in brown paper and string. It was propped beside her door when she returned from taking cookies to the nurses' station at the local hospital, coming back with an empty plate and a full heart.

"That came while you were gone," Miss Hartshorne declared in her foghorn voice as she sailed past Mrs. Pollifax towards her own apartment. "I've been keeping an eye on it for you. People can be so light-fingered nowadays, you know."

"So kind of you," Mrs. Pollifax said politely before shutting the door firmly in her neighbor's face.

She could barely wait long enough to find a pair of scissors and snip the string before tearing the paper off. Underneath, strip by strip, the painting was revealed. When the image had been fully unveiled, she could only laugh.

He'd painted her a green baize gambling table with a deck of cards laid out in a game of solitaire.

She displayed it in pride of place over her living room sofa, and when the inevitable questions from visitors arose, she only smiled and told them it was a treasured gift from a dear friend, and let them draw their own conclusions.


End file.
